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Against my better judgement, because hints from the Narrator usually get Othodox's butt kicked or nerves fried but let's search and loot the Pokemart but keep your knife ready in case a group of Eldritch Creatures have made their nest there.

> Don't loot the pokemart, it is a respectable buisness that should be left alone. On the other hand, I'm sure if you continue on to the next town you could easily loot some houses.
> Against my better judgement, because hints from the Narrator usually get Othodox's butt kicked or nerves fried but let's search and loot the Pokemart but keep your knife ready in case a group of Eldritch Creatures have made their nest there.
> Look through the glass window of the mart to see what is inside before entering.

(2 to 1; Othodox will enter.)

The Narrator has no idea what you're talking about. He is the model of impartial storytelling.

You peep through the window of the Poké Mart, but it's hard to see anything in the growing darkness, especially when your Spooky Flaming Torch is reflecting so brightly off the glass. Squinting through the green flashes, you can just about make out a thick mass of cobwebs choking the upper part of the window, and beyond that darkness.

You wonder whether the cobwebs are from regular spiders or Eldritch Spinarak.

Christ, you wish you hadn't thought of Eldritch Spinarak. Especially since they'd be waking up around about now, if the rising moon is anything to go by.

You put the torch in your left hand and the knife in your right, the better for slashing and stabbing at any horrific beasties that may be lurking, and enter the Mart.

It is entirely silent in here; the dust and cobwebs lie thick over everything, muffling your footsteps, and you have to be careful with the Spooky Flaming Torch so as not to set any of the trailing lines of silk on fire. In the fitful green glow, you see the counter, shelves, racks – everything just as it was before, only now invading time has run its course: the plaster cracks on the walls, in some places falling away in great chunks, and the floor is littered with broken or rotten goods. Water has come in through the roof, and collected in a silent puddle in one corner.

Why is this place so different, you wonder, staring around in some bewilderment. Why is it that everywhere else looks like it was only abandoned five minutes ago, and this place looks like it's been empty for years?

You search the place briefly, and find a single Potion that seems to have survived unscathed. Opening the cap, though, you sniff and recoil hurriedly; it smells like it went off about eighteen months ago.

Othodox found one Decayed Potion! Othodox put the Decayed Potion in the Poisons Pocket.

As you put it into your Bag for possible future use, your eye is drawn to the shadows the torch casts on the wall. They're not like any you've seen before; they dance and shiver like living beings, forming strange faces and eldritch designs for brief instants before uncurling and melting into other shapes. It's horrible, but you can't help but stare; there's something mesmerising about the light cast by those unnatural flames, about those curls and twists, that holds your eyes captive. Especially those four thick curves at the top, unfolding and spreading like the fingers of a huge hand, reaching out silently from unimaginable voids...

A sudden irrational fear of the hand grips you, and you spin wildly, staring into the darkness—

—and see four great clutching claws swinging silently towards you—

You plunge the Spooky Flaming Torch into the morass of shadow at their heart, and with a skittering wail the creature falls to the floor, twitching desperately as the sinister green fire takes hold. In a second, it morphs from half-glimpsed monster to thrashing tangle of limbs – and the next moment, the scream and the fire have gone, and you are alone once again.

You stare.

Did you just...?

Well. If that isn't a confidence booster, you don't know what is.

The Eldritch Spinarak – for such you assume it is – seems to have retained its weakness to Fire-type moves even after its transformation, and the Eldritch Cyndaquil's fire is definitely some of the most potent you've ever encountered. The monstrous spider has been completely destroyed; all that remains is a small pile of ashes and a vaguely-spider-shaped heap of webbing that you assume it shrouded itself in for reasons unknown.

You spend a short amount of time giving thanks to Tabiti for the Gift of Fire, and a considerably longer amount of time dancing and whooping victoriously, punctuated with the occasional brazen insult hurled at the Spinarak's corpse.

Othodox's Devotion has improved!

Othodox is now Favoured by Tabiti!

Hmm. The webbing isn't even scorched, and it seems to have contained the blaze. It might be useful to take some of that along with you. You can't seem to cut any of it loose from the surrounding shelves – it's tougher than your Dangerous Makeshift Knife – but you can fold up the stuff that was on the Spinarak and take it with you.

Oh, you really like the sound of that Pocket. Hopefully you'll find some more stuff to put in there at some point.

It isn't all good news, however. Swatting the monster seems to have inflicted considerable structural damage on the Spooky Flaming Torch: a large piece has broken off the end, and the remaining length of wood won't take so long to burn out.

Spooky Flaming Torch is 31% burned out.

You continue investigating the strangely ruined Mart for a few minutes longer, but find nothing more than an unidentifiable shrivelled black thing stuck to the web in one corner. It's roughly circular, with four strange, blunt prongs sticking out of one side. Little purplish stains are visible here and there on its withered surface. You're not entirely sure whether this was ever a living thing, or whether it was made out of leather. Perhaps it was once a shoe or a handbag, and time and Spinarak blood have reduced it to this.

Find some more sticks and some dry grass and built a fire out of your torch for the night also keep a stick nearby to turn into another torch just in case more Spinaraks try to get you, Also if you plan on taking cover in a house build the fire on stone or tile in the house and away from curtains

Torch all the buildings you're not hiding in for good measure. It might prevent Eldricht Metapods from invading the town.
Check the date on your pokédex and compare against what remains of your memory.

> Take cover in one of the abandoned houses. Don't want to be around when the scary nocturnal beaties come out.
> Find some more sticks and some dry grass and built a fire out of your torch for the night also keep a stick nearby to turn into another torch just in case more Spinaraks try to get you, Also if you plan on taking cover in a house build the fire on stone or tile in the house and away from curtains
> I'm in agreement for building some kind of fire indoors and seeing out the night. It probably wouldn't be an awful idea to barricade the door, either.
> Torch all the buildings you're not hiding in for good measure. It might prevent Eldricht Metapods from invading the town.
Check the date on your pokédex and compare against what remains of your memory.

You elect to spend the night in the Guide Gent's house, since there's a plentiful supply of shoes to burn there, and the boxes they're packed in will make excellent kindling. However, a few preparations are in order before you settle down for the night.

Firstly, you root around beneath the trees at the northern edge of town and come up with a reasonable bundle of dry sticks for the fire and one small, stout branch that, while damp, could be dried out and used to make a second Spooky Flaming Torch. You transfer your haul to the Guide Gent's house, and then return to the town centre.

You're not entirely sure about this next part. Those flames aren't normal – they're hungry, and judging by the speed and ease with which they spread, setting the other buildings on fire might well result in burning down the Guide Gent's house, too. Which would not, you reflect, be quite what you're after.

Since, y'know, being burned to a crisp is pretty much what you've been running away from this entire time.

Actually, you're not so sure you want to burn the town any more, anyway. You're assuming Eldritch Metapod aren't really a major threat, anyway, since they probably can't do anything except Harden, even if they do it in a really creepy way.

Returning to the Guide Gent's house, you push the table, chairs and every other moveable article of furniture up against the door, and do your best to build a fire from torn-up cardboard and dry sticks in the tiled kitchen area. You drop the Spooky Flaming Torch on top, and as the fire takes hold, you reflect that you really didn't need to go to the trouble of doing it properly. If there's anything even remotely flammable around, the Cyndaquil's fire will consume it.

Right, then. You're warm, you have light – even if it is the scariest sort of light you've ever encountered – and you have Lava Cookies and a Hambone to stave off hunger, though the latter is still raw. Things are starting to look up – and about time too, given what you've been through today.

You sit back against the kitchen counter, stuffing a spare cushion behind your back, and sigh contentedly. This definitely beats tramping around in the tall grass with the long shadow of approaching doom constantly hanging over you. It seems an appropriate sort of time to sort out some of these issues that have been clouding your mind recently.

Firstly, the date. What is it? Mostly, it seems like just a day or two has passed, but in that Pokémon Mart, it looks like years. You check the Pokédex, remember it doesn't do the date and check the Pokégear instead.

Wait, you had a Pokégear with you this entire time? You'd have thought the Narrator would've mentioned that.

The Pokégear gives the time and date as 8.19 on the 22nd of December, 2012.

Huh. Perhaps the conspiracy theorists were right.

You cast your mind back and try to recall the first date you remember. What was it? March? You seem to remember a March in there somewhere. Or was it November?

Damn it, this isn't working. Your memory seems to be pretty flimsily constructed; at first glance, you appear to recall everything, but when you examine things further, they just don't have any substance to them.

It's while you're musing on this disturbing fact that you encounter an unexpected problem.

Open a window or two to let the smoke out, just keep an eye on them so no unwanted nasties can invade your temporary shelter. Once the smoke does clear out, or assuming it does, perform a ritual to your goddess Tabiti. She has been at least remotely helpful so far and she deserves some recognition. Just make sure the ritual does not include a blood sacrifice because she is the goddess of animals and fire.

> Open the window to let the smoke out, and After the smoke is gone, preform an ancient pagan ritual to please Tabiti and for good luck in the hunt.
> Open a window or two to let the smoke out, just keep an eye on them so no unwanted nasties can invade your temporary shelter. Once the smoke does clear out, or assuming it does, perform a ritual to your goddess Tabiti. She has been at least remotely helpful so far and she deserves some recognition. Just make sure the ritual does not include a blood sacrifice because she is the goddess of animals and fire.

You open two of the windows, which seems to go some way to dispersing the smoke (although you'd still rather not stand up in here) but which does admit a bit of a draught. The intense heat of the eldritch fire offsets this nicely, though, and you begin to feel like you might actually be getting the hang of this whole 'postapocalyptic survival' thing.

At least, you're assuming it's postapocalyptic. Despite your earlier clue that there are at least a few other survivors, Johto does seem to have suffered some kind of major disaster.

Perhaps praying to a nonexistent goddess you're using to make yourself feel better will maintain your current run of good luck.

Othodox's Devotion has improved!

Othodox is now Looked Upon with Loving Eyes by Tabiti!

> Cook and eat the ham bone and place the damp stick near the flame but not where it can burn to dry.

You spit the Hambone on a stick and suspend it over the fire to cook. It will probably take a while; it's pretty big. The damp branch you place just far enough from the fire that the weirdly aggressive flames won't jump onto it, and you're gratified almost immediately by the sight of steam rising gently from its sides.

Man, that Hambone is starting to smell good.

You hadn't quite realised how hungry you were until you smelled that. I mean, you had a cookie this morning, but you've had no food since then and, well, that was just a cookie. This is freaking meat. Proper food. The kind of food your caveman ancestors ripped off the back of a woolly rhino and charred black on the outside before plunging it, dripping glorious fatty juices, straight into their waiting mouths.

All right, steady on. You seem to be taking the idea of being a manly survivalist far more seriously than someone who's almost died at least four times today has any right to take it.

The rich smell of cooking meat and woodsmoke fills the house and lends a warmth to you beyond that of the fire. You sigh contentedly, for a moment forgetting your problems, and relax against your cushion.

You should keep your Dangerous Makeshift Knife close at hand while you sleep, after thinking those last words you've probably made it so something will go horribly wrong. After you wake up you should make your way to Violet City, but don't forget to harvest a berry and loot Mr Pokemon's house.

> At voilet you shoud loot the store for goodies. In the meantime, make yourself comfortable and sing campfire songs to boost morale

I pictured a rainbow
You held it in your hands
I had flashes
But you saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
While you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
You were there in the turnstiles
With the wind at your heels
You stretched for the stars
And you know how it feels
To reach too high
Too far
Too soon
You saw the whole of the moon

You bellow out the chorus, leaping to your feet and playing wild air guitar, and as you launch into the second verse, you feel like you're right there onstage with the Waterboys.

The Narrator believes that if you do not know this song, you're too young to be talking to him. Whippersnapper.

> Pray to Tabiti before you eat and sleep, thank her for the fire, Honestly things have been going your way a bit since you started worshipping her.

Another prayer to Tabiti? Seems a bit excessive, given how soon it would come after the last one. You don't want her to think you're faking it. If she gets that idea, perhaps she'll send flaming animals at you.

Like Eldritch Cyndaquil.

Of course, this relies on her being real, and that's not something you're really sure of yet – but still. You don't want to risk it.

> After you eat the ham bone, you go to sleep and wake up in the morning and head for Violet City, slowly making your way to Goldenrod. There could be someone human there.

Oh God that Hambone's good. You tear into it with all the subtlety of That Thing on seeing a particularly tasty face, and feel the hot meat juices run down your chin as they once ran down the chin of your caveman ancestors.

Those ancestors have been figuring quite prominently in your Hambone-related thoughts of late.

You can't quite finish the whole thing, but you put the leftovers in your Bag for later. This is in no way as bad an idea as it sounds.

Othodox found some Delicious Meat Bits! Othodox put the Delicious Meat Bits in the Provisions Pocket.

> You should keep your Dangerous Makeshift Knife close at hand while you sleep, after thinking those last words you've probably made it so something will go horribly wrong. After you wake up you should make your way to Violet City, but don't forget to harvest a berry and loot Mr Pokemon's house.

Replete, you recline on your cushion and sigh lazily. You feel so good right now you don't even know how to express it: full of meat, wearing a dress and a Flowery Wreath and with your foot inside a stuffed toy. This, you think, is the life.

That's not to say you're going to let your guard down – oh no. You're pretty sure you've used up your quota of deus ex machina rescues for the entire adventure, and if you fail to prepare properly you have a sneaking suspicion that you're not going to survive. While you hope most creatures will be afraid of the green firelight – after all, everything nearby must have seen the Eldritch Cyndaquil as it passed – you don't want to be left defenceless.

I mean, think about it. Some bugs are attracted to light. Like Dustox. Big, scary moths with wings full of poisonous dust and eyes like evil, pitted moons. Imagine them all eldritched up and fluttering silently toward the fire in your sleep.

Oh man. You are so glad this adventure isn't set in Hoenn.

You are also going to be sleeping very, very lightly tonight.

You keep the Dangerous Makeshift Knife close when you lie down to sleep, and derive some comfort from the way the glass blade flashes in the firelight.

“Lucid Dream Mode, activate!” you cry, punching the air with one hand and screwing up your face in effort. A moment later you black out from lack of air.

Well, so much for that.

You sigh and try to get some sleep, but realise with some consternation that it's very hard to sleep when falling through the depths of the ocean. Sighing, you give up and drift upright instead, trying to see if you can swim back to the surface – but some downward current has a strong grip on you, and you can barely even move your arms against it.

You're sucked down, and the water fades from green to blue to a murky indigo; the fish that flash past you are fewer in number now, and have great gulping mouths and bulging eyes that stir up icy fingers of horror in the pit of your stomach.

The water stirs beneath you, black and inscrutable, and you suddenly know that something is down there, something that you do not want to see, something that must never come to light—

You start awake violently. The fire has consumed the wood and moved on to burning the tiles, which have slowed its growth but not checked it, and sunlight is streaming through the open windows.

Whoa. You're not sure if that dream was due to the disturbing events of the day before or your attempt to activate Lucid Dream Mode, but it was definitely terrifying. Mind you, that's becoming fairly run-of-the-mill now, so you were almost expecting it. Thanks to that, the bright sunlight and the encouraging proximity of your Dangerous Makeshift Knife, it takes only a few minutes for you to shake off the troubling dregs of the nightmare, and soon you gather up your items and head off outside.

You only get as far as the doorstep before you freeze.

The house is entirely surrounded by heaving, wheezing ropes of knotted flesh, tipped at either end with jagged blades. Each is about five feet long – although it's hard to be sure about that; there are so many, and they're so tightly packed, that the whole of Cherrygrove City seems to be one great, pulsating mass of warped flesh – and terminates in a massive, tumorous lump that's just about recognisable as a nose.

It would seem they smelled the meat.

Thankfully, it would also seem that something has stopped them entering the house.

Torch in one hand and knife in the other, you have a look around the house but see nothing out of the ordinary. You return to the door, a little nonplussed.

> Let's not increase the spread of the flames just yet, make Spooky Torch Mark 2 out of the stick and poke the flesh a bit with it.

At the mere sight of the flames, the horde begins to shift uneasily, and those members of it nearest to you start to crawl backwards over their fellows, desperate to put some distance between themselves and that unnatural green light.

An idea strikes you, and you get your Pokédex out. As you suspected, a new Eldritch Form has been added to the entry for Weedle.

Man. Whatever mutated the Pokémon was seriously kind to the Weedle. They've gone from pathetic hindrances to... well, slightly less pathetic hindrances, but they really do look a hell of a lot scarier than before.

The Eldritch Weedle part as you step out of the doorway, swinging your Spooky Flaming Torch boldly; in fact, they start to run, obviously associating you with the fire on Route 30 that, you realise, probably incinerated a good few of their brethren. A sudden feeling of Mightiness courses through your veins, and you get the feeling that a Spooky Flaming Torch is almost as good as a Belly Drum for raising the old fighting spirit.

A few steps away from the door, the horde breaks and flees: the ground, for ten horrible seconds, is a writhing mass of diseased flesh studded with spines and cancerous knobs of meat – and then the Weedle are gone, and you are alone with your Torch, and your ego.

Fan-freakin'-tastic. This is the most badass you have been since you woke up yesterday. Your mere presence causes the enemy to flee in terror; their puny minds cannot handle the might that is Othodox.

You gloss over the fact that what they're actually afraid of is the Eldritch Cyndaquil's fire. There's no need to lower the mood.

Should probably start moving on up to Violet City. Because that's the logical next step? Also, check the state of the dress I assume is still on, is it in good enough condition to continue protect your modesty?

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